Taking younger age category championships to the next level

Organising younger age category European Championships for the up and coming handball generations has been at the heart of the EHF since its foundation days.

The first events took place and ever since the championships' profiles have increased and so has the number of teams participating.

However, despite the growing success it has been observed that it has become more and more difficult to find organisers for the qualification tournaments, and furthermore it has been noted that a big discrepancy in the competition level/performance between the different participants has occasionally led to 'disharmonic' match results.

The EHF has hence submitted a motion to be voted on by the EHF Congress on Dublin on 19/20 September which includes changing the current format to system with a first and second division without any qualification.

The ranking for the participation in the respective division shall be based on the nations ranking based on the results of the respective nations over the past eight years.

According to the motion the new system shall come into effect for the Men's 18 EHF EURO in 2016, for the Men's 20 EHF EURO in 2018, for the Women's 17 EHF EURO in 2017 and for the Women's 19 EHF EURO in 2019.

The first division will consist of 16 teams while the second division consists of an open number ranging from 2x8 to 2x12 teams.

A promotion system will come into effect which sees the four best ranked teasm of the 'younger' age category of division 2 move to the next event of division 1 of the 'older' category and the last four ranked teams of division 1 relegate to division 2.

"In the interest of all EHF member federations the access to EHF YAC events shall be as easy as possible and affordable for all nations," the EHF says in the motion.

"Therefore the main target of the new proposal is to optimize the competition level, to provide all teams with a reasonable number of matches and to reduce the costs for organization and participation in order keep the competitions accessible."

The EHF also looks at the planned expansion of the Men's EHF EURO events from 16 to 24 participating teams from 2022 (or even 2020) which is another motion to be voted on by the EHF Congress.

"Furtheron the increased number of participating teams in men’s adults final tournaments needs an approach from the bottom to the top in order to raise the overall competition level in various nations, increase the involvement of youngsters and by this enlarge the number of nations being competitive for Men’s Euro qualifications.

"The same holds true for Women’s competitions in order to strengthen female handball for the future," the motion reads.